How do you get that lonely?
by staygoldgreaser
Summary: Ponyboy stands over Dallas and Johnny's graves when Cherry comes along, and they speak of the losses they have endured.


I stood in front of those two headstones wearing my nicest clothes; a button down blue shirt with black pants with a matching jacket. I remembered so recently the two people buried practically under my feet were right at my side, eating barbeque sandwiches and drinking Coke. Sometimes I wondered what could have stopped them from being laid in the cold ground. Maybe if I hadn't spit at that Soc, they wouldn't have chased us and never tried to drown me in the first place. Maybe if Dally hadn't gotten out of jail early we never would have even gone to the drive-in. I finally decided it was Bob's fault; if he hadn't been drunk, Cherry wouldn't have gotten so upset and left the car to sit in front of it. Too bad I couldn't get him back for it, he was dead too. He lay only a few rows away; there were a few Socs, friends of Bob's, standing around, putting large bouqets of flowers near the headstone. It was sad, really, to look back at Dallas and Johnny's headstones. Compared to Bob's, they were bare. A few people had stopped by to give Johnny flowers for being a hero. I don't think his own parents had even been there. Dallas's was practically abandoned. There were two small bouqets, but that was all. No one thought of his as a hero; he was a juvinille delinquent, and he didn't deserve respect for that. But they didn't know, no one did. Only me and Darry and Soda, and Steve and Two-Bit. And we were the only ones left. We went from a strong group of seven to a stronger group of five, because we'd endured so much heartache, so much pain. Between losing my own parents, then them... Dallas died for Johnny. Without Johnny, all Dallas really was was a hoodlum. A lonely hood without a reason to hotmail.clive. If only Johnny had known Dally was gonna die for him, maybe he would have held on a little longer.  
I set a large bunch of colorful flowers between the two graves. No one else had thought to do that. Darry did it to save some money; I did it to give them a link to each other. Sure, everyone knew the two of them had been the two people with me, saving the kids from the church, but what nobody knew was Dallas wasn't all bad. He did his best to help out me and Johnny when we needed him most.  
I've still yet to figure out what caused that fire. Maybe it was a cigarette, but somehow I don't think so. Maybe it was destiny. Maybe God thought Johnny was a bad person for killing Bob, and didn't think to look deeper. Maybe He thought Dallas didn't have a heart. Maybe He really doesn't look deep enough into people. Or maybe He decides destiny by your parents. Neither Johnny nor Dallas had incredible parents. Hell, they didn't even have remotley good parents. Why did God give them this?  
I cleanched my teeth, fighting back tears, but nothing in the world could stop them from falling down my cheeks. I stared at Johnny's headstone.  
Johnathon Cade  
March 1, 1950-1966  
No one had bothered to put his date of death. I don't think his parents even knew. And no one wrote anything about dying a hero. Because his parents had paid for the headstone. It was one of the cheapest in the cemetary. Even my own parents' was nicer.  
This headstone told nothing of Johnny Cade. Heck, if anyone had ever called him Johnathon he probably wouldn't have noticed, thought you were talking to someone else. This didn't say that he'd saved a dozen kids' lives in a church fire, and broken his back doing so. It didn't say it could have been me. If only he'd gotten out first.  
I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder. There stood Cherry, in probably her own finest clothes, hair hanging below her shoulders, finely curley. She seemed calm and normal, yet tears were falling down her cheeks. I put my arm around her shoulders, and she turned and cried into my chest.  
Cherry cried into my jacket for what must have been an awful long time but didn't really feel like it. She finally looked up and rested her head on my shoulder.  
"I'm just so sick of crying," she said. "I lost three people in a week. In one damn week."  
I stood there for a long time, not saying anything, simply thinking. She must have felt guilty. She'd said it at the juvinille court hearing, and it rang over and over in my head: "I could have made it easier for the fight not to have happened in the first place."  
"It's not your fault," I told her. "It's no one's fault."  
She closed her eyes. "No matter who's fault it is, I feel so guilty."  
I pulled her into a hug, and she didn't seem to mind. She continued crying on my shoulder, unafraid of who may have seen.  
We then stood there, watching the graves, thinking maybe there would be some sign that Johnny and Dallas were alive underneath. Of course, they weren't. Sadly, I'd watched both of them die-one, optomistic and ready, the other desperate and unprepared.  
"It was a desperate attempt at bringing him back." I said quietly.  
Cherry turned to me. "Yeah," she wispered. "Yeah."  
Somehow I knew that Dally had been standing in that store he robbed, thinking, no, he wasn't dead. He'd simply fallen asleep, but how could a person sleep hearing Dallas Winston cry? Dally couldn't cry-it was morally wrong. If Dally cried, it was the sign of the apocalypse.  
"How do you get that lonely?" I asked. I was really asking Dallas, but Cherry answered.  
"I didn't know you could," she said. "Not until I met Dallas Winston."


End file.
